Dec. 5th County and City Elections Press Conference

December 6, 2009

Dec. 5th County and City Elections
DPP Press Conference

The following is the full text of Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen’s comments at the press conference.

“I would like to first offer my sincere thanks to the people who voted for the DPP today. You [the voters] made the right choice. Every vote represented a vote of encouragement and it also gave us the strength to move forward. I guarantee that we will work even harder in the future.

“In this election, the DPP’s three incumbent candidates were successfully re-elected. In addition, the DPP once again regained the administration of Ilan County. In regards to the support rate, there was a considerable increase from the past elections (the support rate of the county and city election four years ago was 38.2% and 39.5% in last year’s presidential election). This time, the DPP achieved approximately 45% to 46% of support rate. Even though we lost some counties and cities, the difference between each opponent was very close.

“For the DPP, this represents a positive result, which is also an important step forward for a renewed DPP. We must make special attention that with the KMT’s frequent vote-buying and smearing campaign, the disproportional amount of resources and party assets, we fought an ‘asymmetric battle’. With this kind of improvement, we won a hard-earned victory, representing that society is reaffirming their support for the DPP in local governance and their approval of our reform and reflective spirit.

“We will take the most humble approach to welcome this new result. Especially, the victory in Ilan County is of great significance because it shows us that the people are ready to trust us again and that the DPP is able to regain its passion and earn more self-confidence.

“However, this election result is only a small step, and we must not remain self-complacent. We took the right step to rebound from the bottom, but we have not gathered enough strength to shake the entire pan-blue structure. There is still a long way ahead to achieve our goals.

“I would like to emphasize that unity is how the DPP has been able to get through this difficult period, and in the future, we must remain even more united. The road to the future is still far ahead and we must treasure this progress in order to achieve the next victory.

“The most significant factor in this election is the vote of no-confidence towards the Ma administration during this past year. It doesn’t matter that the KMT is trying to separate government efficiency with election results because even with their majority governance, they weren’t able to increase their seats. In the past year, the failure of its economic policies, the damage to our country’s dignity and the incompetence of senior government officials have exceeded the limits of what the people are willing to accept. We believe that the KMT must carefully interpret the results of this election and understand the message that the people are sending them. If Ma’s administration continues to separate itself from the people, relying on financial resources and factional politics to buy elections, the people will respond with an even larger-scale backlash.

“Finally, we must thank all the people that came out to help in this election, including Former Chairpersons Lin, Hsieh, Su, You, Vice President Lu and our legislators. This election achievement was the result of a united front. Without unity, there is no victory. Solidarity is the party’s energy for progress.”